Ali Gaylord is 24 years old, lives in East Lansing and has a hard time finding anything to do on a Friday night.
"It's not hard to find people," Gaylord said. "It's just hard to get them together in one group."
In a city where the majority of the population is younger than 25, that's a rare complaint.
While MSU students packed the bars along Albert Avenue Friday evening, another under-30 crowd sipped wine, chatted and strolled through the galleries of the Kresge Art Museum on campus.
And for Stacy Trager, it was a welcome change from the ordinary — which is often a dinner date and a movie.
"I'm happy to be doing something different," Trager said, standing with her husband outside a Kresge exhibit of art from the 1960s.
Gaylord and Trager, who manages a sign-making store in Lansing, fall into a demographic that has historically been overlooked in college towns such as East Lansing. They're young professionals — people in their 20s and early 30s, many of whom are recent college graduates or working their first jobs.
"You can go in a T-shirt and have a good time with your friends and maybe get covered in vomit," Gaylord said of hanging out at local bars. "When you graduate, you immediately want something different."
East Lansing nightlife caters mainly to students, leaving few obvious outlets for those tired of the college bar scene.
Gaylord has helped nurture that "something different" as an organizer of Grand River Connection, a Lansing-area young professionals group that holds regular mixers for members to meet and make business contacts.
About 25 of the group's members gathered on Feb. 17 at the art museum, after Kresge staff specifically invited the growing group to join its "Blast from the Past: Arts of the 1960s" event.
The club — which held its first event in June — initially emerged out of Gov. Jennifer Granholm's Cool Cities initiative, which aims to bring economic growth to cities by attracting young, innovative professionals, known as the "creative class."
Members insist it's not a dating service, but as organizer Landon Bartley, 26, said, "it's not all business." The group holds more social events at places such as Beggar's Banquet and the BoarsHead Theater.
East Lansing Mayor Sam Singh, 34, who admits he's "edging out" of the young professional demographic, understands the draw of Grand River Connection. Singh was elected to City Council when he was 24 as a recent MSU graduate.
"My days of going to the Landshark are over," Singh said. "It takes a while to readjust from a university mindset to a young professional mindset.
"I just found myself as a young professional wanting more out of the greater East Lansing, Lansing area, both on a social, as well as a professional basis."
East Lansing officials have made a strong push to attract young professionals, particularly by aligning housing policies to fill what City Manager Ted Staton called a "void" in nonstudent housing.
A 2001 study recommended new housing target young singles and couples without families, and officials have shown they're taking that advice to heart in numerous actions. A new Downtown Housing Policy, approved by City Council in January, makes nonrental housing geared toward young professionals and empty-nesters the top priority for development, and that same goal is outlined in a draft of the city's new comprehensive plan for the future. East Lansing's interest in young professionals isn't motivated primarily by economics, Staton said. The city probably collects more tax money on a per-square-foot basis from student rentals than from owner-occupied properties, he said.
Young professionals, who typically have more disposable income than students, do provide an important boost to area business, Staton and Singh said. But they said they are more interested in stimulating a community's "life cycle," as young professionals eventually settle down and start families.
"This is the workforce of the future," Staton said. "We've got to find ways to keep them here."
According to 2000 Census, about 14 percent of the U.S. population falls into the 25-34 age group. In big cities such as Chicago and New York City, where recent graduates tend to gravitate, that percentage trends toward 20.
In Big Rapids, home to Ferris State University, only 10 percent of the population is in that "young professional" age group. In Ann Arbor, it's more than 18 percent.
East Lansing is more like the former, with 10.6 percent of the population between 25-34, but it's clear officials envision the city becoming more like the latter.
"If you look at good college towns, they're not just a university and just students. There is a mix in that community," Singh said.
There are advantages to staying in Michigan, Grand River Connection organizer Liz Kelsey said.
"If you go to New York City, you're a guppy in a sea of sharks," Kelsey, 24, said. "If you stay in Lansing, you really have a leg up."
Officials are working to provide housing and social opportunities to the "creative class," but they're aware the most important factor in retaining that demographic is creating jobs.
"You're not looking for a community when you move, you're looking for a job when you move," Singh said.
Local leaders have been trying to promote job growth through projects such as the Lansing Regional SmartZone, which provides tax breaks for high-tech businesses to move to the area, but government officials know, ultimately, they can't control where businesses decide to locate.
East Lansing needs to improve in making young people who do find jobs locally feel more like a part of the community, Singh said.
"One of the problems of this area is that young professionals become very isolated," Grand River Connection member Matt Weingarden said. "For the most part, we're working with people who are quite a bit older."
Grand River Connection has been making strides in bringing young professionals together; in less than a year its membership has grown from a hand-picked group to 260 people, with about 60 showing up to each recent mixer.
"There's definitely a gap that they're filling," said Phil Denny, a Lansing resident who's been to several of the group's events.
Those events might lead to some business networking — Trager said she's picked up work from contacts she's made.
But the social aspect of the events isn't all that different from what's going on in the local bar scene — Kelsey met her boyfriend through the group.
All told, the young professionals scattered around Kresge on Feb. 17 — such as Trager and East Lansing resident Jason Brooks, who swapped stories and laughed about past events — didn't seem to care if they were supposed to be doing business or having fun.
"I'll take either one," Trager said.
